Messenger's Angel
Four archangels each with their own soulmate.
As dangerous forces array against them, will they be able to find a love that was cast down from heaven? Sexy, dangerous, immortal - these archangels are definitely no angels...
and it's Gabriel, the Messenger Archangel's, turn to seek his soul mate.
Four thousand years ago, four archangels were cast down to Earth in human form. God's favourites, they came to find their mates, the other half of their souls made only for them, without whom they will never be complete.
Gabriel has always called Scotland his true home. Nevertheless, he is stunned when his arches suddenly appears in the land closest his heart.
Juliette Andersen's encounter with the gorgeous silver-eyed stranger changes their worlds forever. But even as they find each other, enemies surround them. With danger closing in, they will have one chance to fulfil a destiny written for them in the starsÂ…
Heather Killough-Walden has written more than a dozen novels, short stories and poems. Her award-winning paranormal romance thrillers, including the brilliant Big Bad Wolf series, have achieved huge online success and record-breaking sales of over half a million copies. Heather lives in Texas with her husband and daughter.
Messenger's Angel
Hachette Australia
Author: Heather Killough-Walden
ISBN: 9780755380411
Price: $19.99
Interview with Heather Killough-Walden
Question: What originally inspired the series, The Lost Angels?
Heather Killough-Walden: Angels are an ancient concept, one that has been around since the beginnings of religion - dating all the way back to Zoroastrianism. I have a degree in religious studies, so the varying cultural viewpoints of angels (even some of the "Four Favored") throughout time has intrigued me for years. Vampires have been popular for a long time and probably will be forever, but it's good to expand your supernatural base (smile). So, I decided to write about angels. But I didn't want to just talk about angels in general, and I most certainly didn't want to do what any other PNR author was doing. I wanted to delve into something more meaningful and touch on a core a little (sometimes a lot) darker than what you find with the cherubic arrow-shooters, the bringers of light, the scions of goodness, and so forth. The result? The Four Favored: Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, and Azrael - archangels in the extreme, known across continents and eons, recognized at once, and more often than not feared for what they symbolise. Add in a bit of HKW magic and they're not only intensely powerful, direly desperate, and scorchingly sexy - they've got dark sides. Delicious, dangerous, and titillatingly terrifying dark sides. Some more than others.
Question: What do you enjoy most about writing paranormal romance?
Heather Killough-Walden: What's not to love about writing paranormal romance? I never have to live for even a single second without the magic that is the impossible and perfect man. He's always right here - in my head, in my heart, and when the muse is upon me - on my page.
Question: Have you always wanted to be a writer? Who or what originally inspired you to put pen to paper?
Heather Killough-Walden: Yes. I knew how to read when I was two. Writing came shortly after that at the age of 5. I am a horrible speaker; I suffer from terrible foot-in-mouth disease, lol. As a result, I write. It's the best and sometimes only way for me to communicate with any kind of clarity, to say nothing of effectiveness. It's also a wonderful escape. And my journal, which I've kept since I was in the second grade, has often been my best and only friend.
It was so long ago and I was so young, I honestly can't remember. But I will tell you this. An empty page is many things to me. It is a challenge and a temptation and a magnificent possibility. Not much makes me happier deep down inside than taking that blank page, putting a pen to it, and filling it right up with words. And that's another thing - words. When you think about them, they're rather mind-boggling. They are these simple designs, scrapes of a rock in the dirt or a chisel in stone or a stick in the sand or ink on flattened wood. A downward stroke here, a tilted wave there, and suddenly you have a symbol, an object of meaning. You've created language, understanding, and communication. You've literally created something out of nothing. That's magic. I can't imagine not being fascinated by words and wanting to scribble them absolutely everywhere.
Question: What was the best thing about creating the character of Gabriel?
Heather Killough-Walden: Scotland. I admit it; I love the image of the tall, supernaturally strong, dark haired man with vivid, light coloured eyes and a deep Scottish brogue. Damn that's some kind of sexy! Make him an archangel with a hot temper, a firm resolve, and a scorching kiss and he's just about perfect.
Of course, it didn't hurt that I got to write the book on location. Actually being in Scotland allowed me to add a depth to the novel that would not have been possible otherwise. As a reader, you can see the land and the sea perfectly. You can hear it, smell it, and even taste it. Caledonia runs through the life blood of that story. It's like the very ink that stains its pages.
Question: What's next for the The Lost Angels series?
Heather Killough-Walden: Death's Angel. I can't wait for this book to come out. I'm actually in the process of doing copy edits for Death's Angel and I'm having the hardest time doing them. Why? Because every time I try to concentrate on my edits, I instead find myself completely sucked into the intensely arousing, heart-pounding, dark and dangerous thrill ride that is this hands-down absolutely, unequivocally MEGA-HOT BOOK! I'm telling you. This one is going to blow the top off of the paranormal romance world because that world has NEVER seen a man like Azrael, the former Archangel of Death, and the king of the vampires. Never. You're going to read it five times. And then you're going to wish you could forget it all just so that you could read it again.
Question: Can you share your writing schedule with us; when do you write and how do you go about writing your books?
Heather Killough-Walden: If you want to succeed as an author, you not only have to write, you have to do an overwhelming host of other things in order to market your work. If you want a book to sell, you can't market it here and there. You basically have to never STOP marketing it. As an author who is not only print-published but self-published (indie), I buy my own ads, pay for my own videos, create banners, and set up interviews and blogs. I am in contact with my readers on Facebook and Twitter, in chat rooms, and on stationary review sites such as Goodreads every day. I design my own covers, my sales blurbs, edit my own self-published books, and load them on to various eBook-selling sites. I work so hard and so long on these other venues, I have not even a fraction of the time I once had for the actual writing part of being a writer. It's very difficult. Very time consuming.
Even authors who are not self-published and only have to deal with the print publishing process are given many of the tasks above, and are also saddled with a lengthy editing process. A book can go through as many as three to six rounds before it finally goes to the copy editor - and that's another round of edits more than anything else.
Since I am print-published and an indie author, I am thoroughly enmeshed in both of these processes. So, as I said, the amount of time I actually get to spend writing is much, much smaller than I would prefer it to be.
That said - I never stop writing. At least, not in my head. There is a quote on my website: "A writer never has a vacation. For a writer, life consists of either writing or thinking about writing." - Eugene Ionesco.
He hit the nail on the head.
Interview by Brooke Hunter
